


One Black Coffee

by Lily_Padd_23



Category: The West Wing
Genre: Alternate Universe - Coffee Shops & Cafés, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, But like within the past couple years, Coffee Shops, Everyone Is Gay, First Time, Fluff, Fluff and Smut, M/M, Non-Explicit Sex, Not like COVID, Not like MODERN modern, Oral Sex, There are no straight people in this story, This Was Supposed To Be A One Shot, Tooth-Rotting Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-10
Updated: 2020-09-10
Packaged: 2021-03-06 23:20:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,412
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26397058
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lily_Padd_23/pseuds/Lily_Padd_23
Summary: The Coffee Shop AU that only one of you asked for.
Relationships: Josh Lyman/Sam Seaborn
Comments: 6
Kudos: 45





	One Black Coffee

**Author's Note:**

  * For [firewordsparkler](https://archiveofourown.org/users/firewordsparkler/gifts).



Josh was looking about as blustery as the late winter air when he came barreling into the coffee shop on the corner for the second time that morning. Like he could really afford to be getting multiple nearly-five-dollar cups of coffee in one day when the coffee pot back in the office on the Hill was, well, it was perfectly adequate. But his mind had drawn a blank when Amy had asked where he wanted to meet, so here he was. The blue-eyed barista with the thick glasses who always got his order wrong was still there. When he saw Josh, his eyes lit up behind his glasses in that overly sweet customer service way he had.

“Twice in one day!” he beamed from behind the counter, “What a lovely surprise.”

In one clumsy gesture, Josh gave him half a wave and pointed to a table for two by the window telling him, “I’m meeting someone, so I’m just gonna…”

“Oh, sure!” came the cheerful reply, “The usual?”

Josh sighed a little and nodded before plopping his backpack down at the table and draping his jacket over chair, sitting with his back to the door. He made himself busy at his laptop, skimming through the PowerPoint on the launch of a gender recruitment initiative that he’d lied about having already read.

It wasn’t a particularly busy time of day being between the pre-work coffee crowd and the lunch-goers, so the place had fallen in the ambient lull of Josh’s clacking at the keyboard, the nondescript indie music in the background, and the two or three other customers engaging in quiet conversation, interrupted by the occasional burst of a machine behind the counter. Until about ten minutes after Josh’s arrival when the door swung open and clicking heels crossed the tile floor. Josh didn’t even have to look up from the slide he was on to know it was Amy.

“G’morning. I’ll have an espresso macchiato. Double,” she said to the barista, adding with a nod in Josh’s direction, “And whatever he’s having.” She paid and sat across from Josh, shrugging off her long red jacket and crossing her legs as she took him in. After a beat, she asked, “So what do you think of the section on offering financial incentives to campaign teams that meet a basic gender quota?”

“Well,” Josh bluffed, “Y’know, I think decreasing the gender gap in political campaigns is an admirable goal, but I think we’ll run up against a number of issues, most notably that it would create a massive conflict of interest for…” he paused when he saw her raise a single eyebrow, “There… is not section on offering financial incentives to campaign teams that meet a basic gender quota, is there?”

“Of course not, Josh,” she deadpanned, “But now can go forward without having to pretend like you’ve read it.”

“I meant to read it…” he conceded.

“Josh, I specifically made this short and concise PowerPoint with easily digestible bullet points and colorful charts and graphs because I knew guys like you wouldn’t bother to read the whole report,” she chided, “Good to know that even a handful of slides is too much.”

“C’mon,” he laughed, “Guys like me?”

“No, I’m serious J,” she prodded a finger into the table, her tone shifted, “How much of your attention span are you willing to give inequality in your profession? Should I start writing gender policy on the slips that go inside fortune cookies?”

“Amy…” he buried his hands in his hair.

She went on miming unrolling a tiny scroll, “Oh look, ‘The stars say that just because you’re gay doesn’t mean you aren’t a massive misogynist.’”

“Look, it’s not that I don’t think this stuff is important,” he said, “It’s just that I don’t think the problem has ever been a lack of women who are interested in the job, it’s that people like my boss need to either know a woman personally or want to sleep with her to be willing to recognize that women who are interested in the job are qualified.”

“Jesus, Josh.”

“What?” he cried, “It’s never been a recruitment problem.”

“If you had taken five minutes to _read_ what we had to say, you’d see that we actually address that on, like, the first slide,” she said. She paused with arched brows to let him flounder, opening and closing his mouth a few times, before she went on, “This whole initiative isn’t just going up to women and saying, ‘hey come work in politics,’ it’s about being able to adapt the political workplace environment so that when you bring women into a campaign job, you can actually articulate to them how you are adapting the office environment to allow them perform to their fullest potential without having to navigate harassment and sexism and knowing that there are mechanisms in place to address those issues when they arise.”

“Then why don’t you just call it that?” Josh asked indignantly.

“Because if we called it an initiative to make a safer workplace for women entering the field of political campaigning and holding sexual predators accountable, your boss, a.k.a. Congressman Handsy Harrison, wouldn’t have come anywhere near it,” she made a face and looked out the window, mocking forlorn, “Plus that doesn’t fit in a hash tag.”

Josh just looked at her for a second. He knew she was right, but he never liked to admit it to _her._ Simply because when he had to admit Amy was right about all the things those on his side of the table were doing wrong it meant evaluating whether he was actually at the right side of the table. And he’d worked too hard to get to this particular table, so close to the table where he’d pictured himself working since he was a kid to call that into question right now. To call into question whether or not he’d ever be able to do enough good working for enough good people to make up for all the ethically grey things he’d helped ethically grey people do in order to get to that table where he could do more good.

He realized he was thinking too hard about tables and not hard enough about trying to think of a response when their conversation was interrupted by a chipper, “Your espresso macchiato,” as the barista with the blue eyes set their drinks down in front of them, “And your caffè latte. The usual.”

“Thanks, Sam,” Josh said, turning to offer him a smile.

“You are most welcome!” he grinned and headed back to the counter.

“Wait, Josh, that’s a caffè latte.” Amy noted, sitting up to try and get the barista’s attention.

“Don’t worry about it,” he shot at her under his breath, giving a dismissive wave when the barista stopped to look back at him.

“Since when have you ever had anything other than black coffee with too many sugars?” she asked in the same whisper.

“Just thought I’d mix it up a little.” The barista looked back and forth between them from behind his glasses when Josh finally waved him off with, “It’s fine, thank you!” and returned to look at Amy, whose face was slowly morphing from confusion to recognition. “What?”

“You like him?” she said in a low tone, nodding sideways at the counter.

“What?!” Josh repeated in hushed alarm.

“You know his name and he thinks he knows your order,” she stifled a grin.

“What, no, he’s just being nice,” Josh shrugged, “Slightly incompetent, but nice.”

“You won’t correct him,” she lifted her cup to her lips and added, “He’s cute.”

“No, stop it, no, I just… you know, thought I’d mix it up.” He said again, swallowing hard at a sip of the over-frothy beverage.

Amy snorted at his obvious distaste and said, “I have never known you to mix anything up in the entirety of our friendship. Is this why you wanted to come here?” he groaned and she went on, “Why is it so difficult for you to just admit that you like him?”

“Amy, I don’t like every cute guy I ever see,” he protested.

“So you admit that you think he’s cute,” she cut him off.

“Of course I think he’s cute,” Josh hissed, “He’s just objectively cute, even you can’t look at him without thinking he’s cute and you’re a…”

“Can I get you anything else?” Sam was back at their table and Josh startled, wondering how he was able to keep sneaking up on him like that.

“Yeah, actually,” Amy said, watching Josh with amusement, the look on her face delighting in the fact that she’d seen Sam approach and hadn’t given Josh any warning, “Can I get a croissant?”

“Plain, almond, chocolate, raisin, or gluten free?” Sam rattled as Amy communicated a litany of teases to Josh with just her unyielding eye contact. Josh protested each one with his eyebrows.

“Plain is fine,” she answered.

“Heated?”

“Sure,” she waited for him to leave before she asked, “Why haven’t you asked him out?”

“I…” Josh started indignantly, “I barely know him, we just chat about politics and sports and, like, movies sometimes and…”

“You _chat?”_

“I swear to God,” Josh dropped his face into both of his palms, “I liked it better when you were calling me a misogynist.”

“You are a misogynist.” Amy agreed. “But all men are sometimes.”

“Amy…”

“Sam opens door for women and expects to be congratulated…” she watched him over Josh’s shoulder, tipping her head in assessment, “No, no, here it is: he slips unexpected ‘her’ into a conversation about a hypothetical person and then gives one of those self-satisfied smiles even though he interrupted a woman to make his point.”

“You’re exhausting,” Josh sighed.

“I’m only exhausting because you have to wake up to reality from a world without acknowledging the fact that your homosexuality doesn’t exempt you from white male privilege when you’re around me,” she said, not changing her expression, “Sam pats himself on the back every time he adds a token female artist to his Spotify playlists.”

“Oh my God.”

“Sam actually reads the PowerPoints on gender equity in the workplace that his college friends send him,” she went on and Josh rolled his eyes but returned to the screen in front of him, “But then he mansplains them to the very female friend who wrote it.”

“Oh my _God!”_ Josh groaned, “Are you going to let me read or are you going to chastise me for not reading?”

“Both.”

After a few minutes of silence in which Josh tried to read as Amy sipped her espresso and distracted him with pointed looks, Sam returned with Amy’s croissant on a plate with tidily folded napkin and a pad of butter. She thanked him, still looking at Josh, making him doubly aware of the way he self-consciously sat up a little straighter when Sam was there.

“My pleasure,” he smiled and started to go.

“Hey,” Amy said literally sticking her tongue into her cheek. Sam paused and turned back to them as she went on, “Can you help me and my friend settle a bet?”

“Sure…” Sam said, adjusting his glasses and putting a hand on his hip, an intrigued smile crossing his face.

“You doin’ anything tonight?” Amy lifted her eyebrows suggestively as she toyed a piece of the paper napkin between her fingers.

“Well,” Sam’s brow furrowed a bit, “I have to finish a brief for contracts law, and I’ve got a bottle of Riesling chilling in the fridge, and Dr. Strangelove is coming on Turner Classic Movies, and…”

As Sam spoke, Amy gave Josh a look that made him want to spill his coffee in her lap. Still not breaking eye contact with Josh, she said, “No, no, I mean _are you doing anything?”_ She tipped back in her chair and glanced up in time to catch Sam’s flush of realization. Josh wanted to kick the chair out from under her. He took a sustained sip of his drink so he could glare at her behind the cup.

“Oh,” Sam floundered, “Oh well, um,” he adjusted his glasses again and said, “Well, I’m very _flattered_ , but I actually um. I bat for the other team.”

Josh almost choked on his coffee and Amy let out a strangled laugh from the back of her throat.

“Oh, you’re adorable,” she said, flatly smirking, “So do I.” Sam just blinked. “My friend here bet me my second cup of coffee that you wouldn’t be available if he asked you for drinks tonight.”

“I…” Josh stammered and Amy kicked the heel of her boot into his shin under the table, _“Fuck you!”_

“Well, um,” Sam went all flustered as he looked over at Josh who tried to convey his lack of complicity in Amy’s plot with a tortured, apologetic expression. Sam’s gaze was soft and somehow made Josh’s racing heart calm down with something in his eyes that twisted between eagerness and hesitance, trying to ease Josh’s visible discomfort, “Like I said, Dr. Strangelove is on, so…”

“Josh works on the Hill,” Amy said triumphantly, “So I’m sure he’d enjoy political satire.”

“Just ignore her,” Josh finally interjected, a line finally being crossed at the implication of him inviting himself to this practical stranger’s home via Amy’s intrusive matchmaking, “She’s not being serious. She thinks this is funny or something.” As in on cue, Amy could no longer bury a fit of devilish giggles.

“Well, it does put me in a bit of an odd position,” Sam looked at his feet.

“Yeah, Amy,” Josh said, attempting to ease the tension by kicking her back under the table, “You’re going to have to double your tip for putting him in an odd position.”

“I mean, it’s not like there’s exactly a protocol when someone initiates a movie date at your place on behalf of the boyishly handsome guy with great dimples and interesting political insight you’ve been crushing on for months,” Sam looked back up at him, a flicker in his eyes like he was about to wave it off as a joke but he was trying to gage Josh’s reaction first. At this, Josh’s heart lurched and Amy bit her lip, letting her eyes go wide, her facial expression silently communicating a sarcastic, knowing _well, well, well, would you look at that._

Josh opened his mouth and quickly blinked a few times before looking back and forth over his shoulders and saying, “What guy would that be?” Sam let out a too-loud laugh like air being squeezed out of a balloon, before they settled into the kind of knowing look that in the movies would have superimposed an empty space where the rest of the world faded away. Months of flirtatious banter over a daily cup of coffee he hadn’t ordered, running late to meetings to squeeze in a few extra minutes of Sam’s stories, and days when Sam’s intense but warm energy had managed to pull Josh out of a funk with a single well-timed joke or nudge of encouragement that Josh had been writing off as the long-repressed hopeless romantic in him making too much of nothing suddenly crystallized as a very obvious and clear progression to this very moment, and suddenly this all seemed a lot more inevitable than Josh was willing to admit that anything could actually be...

“So what time should he pick you up, Sam?”

A bit of schedule wrangling moderated by Amy concluded that it made more sense for Josh to come back and meet Sam here after he finished up for the day cause Sam could have some dinner and finish his assignment on the staff wifi after his shift ended at 5:00. As they walked out together, Amy made Josh promise he wouldn’t work past 7:00 so that he wouldn’t keep Sam waiting too long. Josh reluctantly promised, and spent the rest of the day trying and failing to ignore the stupid butterflies he got every time he glanced at the clock or the way his throat tightened every time he caught a glimpse of his own reflection in a window or a mirror or a monitor looking increasingly more haggard through out the day. Sam, on the other hand, didn’t look any worse for wear when Josh finally made his way to back to the coffee shop for the third time that day around 7:30. There was no one else there besides the redheaded barista who’d taken over from Sam for the dinner shift who was currently sitting on the counter, which Josh was sure violated a health code he decided not to care about, playing a game on her phone. Sam was perched at the bar in the back with a nearly empty salad bowl and his laptop, bright eyes in deep concentration as he read the screen in front of him. Before approaching him, Josh made a pretense of straightening his tie and checking his breath, though he’d been alternating between chewing gum and sucking Altoids all day to the point where he thought he’d probably taste mint in every bite of food he took for the next week. Sam finally broke his intense reading long enough notice Josh, grinned, and quickly closed his computer, shuffling to get all his things together.

“Hey,” Josh greeted softly once he was by Sam’s side, “You have no obligation to follow through with this harebrained scheme of Amy’s, you know. I’d understand if you just wanted to not and say we did.”

Sam chuckled as he strapped his briefcase onto his shoulder, “No, I’m good with it if you want to,” he said and then paused and rephrased with earnest eyes, “I’d _like_ you to come.”

“Okay,” Josh felt himself half smile.

As they made their way to Sam’s car, they easily fell into a comfortable rhythm about their respective days in the shop and on the Hill, Sam talking about funny customers and the assignment he was working on, Josh rambling about an annoying whip count for which he couldn’t get consistent numbers. They piled into Sam’s car, Sam apologized for a mess that wasn’t there and Josh picked on him for it as he buckled his seat belt. He waited for Sam to start the car, but when he looked over, Sam was just sort of shifting in his seat chewing at his own bottom lip. Before Josh could ask if he was all right, Sam turned to him deliberately and said, “I want to make something clear.”

“Okay…” Josh said, bracing himself for the other shoe of this whole situation to drop, an apology and an excuse to get out of it.

“I actually do want to watch the movie,” Sam said and Josh felt himself laugh lightly with relief.

“Okay,” he repeated through a smile.

Sam pressed on, “I wanted to go ahead and get that out there so you don’t misinterpret the fact that I’m not going to make a pass at you while the movie’s on as a sign that I’m uninterested in you.”

“Okay,” Josh said again, breaking into a dumb grin.

“Cause I’m very, _very_ interested, I just have legitimately been eagerly awaiting this movie all week,” Sam continued, “It’s been my planned reward for getting through the week that I gave myself to be able to look forward to. If I had known that this was going to happen, I would have been able to look forward to this, but now that I’ve been looking forward to the movie all week, I actually really have worked myself up about wanting to watch movie not just have sex with you.” Josh’s eyes went huge, and Sam clattered away, “I’m not ruling out sex with you altogether, just not until after the movie.”

“Good to know,” Josh laughed, blinking a few times to keep up with the speed at which Sam was talking.

“Not that I’m like, _expecting_ you to have sex with me if you don’t want to have sex with me, I just didn’t want you to think…”

“Sam?” Josh interrupted, prompting Sam to bite his lip, “I can pretty much guarantee you that if sex is on the table, I’m not going to turn down a seat at that table.”

“Okay,” Sam nodded with something akin to professionalism, “Glad we’re on the same page.”

“Yeah,” Josh smiled, relishing all the different things we was still able to pick up on Sam’s face even in the shadow of the dimly lit parking lot.

“Just not until after the movie,” Sam reiterated.

“Of course not,” Josh bit back a laugh, trying to match Sam’s serious tone.

“Sorry, this is um… uncharted territory, if you will, for me,” Sam ran a hand through his hair.

“I don’t think you can do anything wrong, Sam,” Josh assured with a smirk, “This is an unprecedented situation all the way around.”

“No, I mean, like…” Sam sighed, and gestured between them, “I’ve never…”

“Been set up with an acquaintance by a crazy lesbian who doesn’t respect boundaries and ended up on a rather intimate first date with a guy whose last name you don’t even know?” Josh raised an eyebrow, “Neither have I. I don’t think many people have.”

“I mean…” Sam squirmed and bumped his glasses with his knuckles, “This is my _first_ first date…with a guy, that is. Ever. At all.”

“Oh,” Josh said, sardonic bubble bursting around him, “Okay… okay.”

“I, um… haven’t even been out for very long… um… only as long as I’ve been here, basically, in D.C.” Sam’s eyes were glinting around the car, landing fleetingly on everything but Josh. “I came out to my folks right before I moved here for law school and um… it didn’t go to well, hence the uh… the service job and the part time classes.”

“Mmm…” Josh acknowledged softly, not really sure what else to say. It clicked together now, all the little things that had never quite fit about this beautiful, uptight, manicured boy behind the counter who carried himself and spoke like the obnoxiously wealthy kids Josh had been forced to find internships for cause their dads were somebody who knew somebody.

“So I haven’t really had the chance to, um… do this part because before I got here I was in the closet and since moving here, I’ve been… I don’t know, I’ve been busy and scared and in over my head and frankly, all the gay people my age know what they’re doing and all the gay people who don’t know what they’re doing are too young, so I never really figured out how to get to this part, and now that I’m here with _you_ I just don’t want my lack of knowing what I’m doing to prevent me from being able to figure out what I’m doing, and I …” Sam stopped himself, finally making eye contact with Josh again and cringed as he asked, “Did I just make this too heavy?”

“No! No, not at all,” Josh heard himself say with a depth of tenderness in his voice he didn’t even know he was capable of. Sam relaxed back into the seat with a release of nervous laughter, and Josh reached to touch the tips of his fingers to the back of Sam’s hand where it rested on the seat divider. “Hey,” Josh said, “You are physically incapable of messing this up with me, okay? I’m just along for the ride.” Sam swallowed and nodded and finally turned the key in the ignition, and Josh felt his heart do something embarrassingly similar to skipping a beat at the smile Sam gave him as he started the car.

“It’s Seaborn, by the way,” Sam said once they made it out of the parking lot, “My last name.” Josh chuckled and started to respond, but Sam beat him to it, “And yours is Lyman.” Before Josh could get the joke about Sam being a stalker out, Sam reminded him, “I’ve scanned your debit card basically every day since September.”

“Right,” Josh let a beat pass before he said, “Also… if it makes you feel any better, I came out when I was fourteen, and I have yet to meet a gay person of any age who knows what they’re doing.”

Sam laughed out a syllabled _“Ha!”_ and Josh grinned again as Sam contemplated, saying, “That does actually make me feel better.”

They made it to Sam’s place across the river just outside Arlington with a little over an hour to spare before the movie started. Sam’s place was predictably quaint one room apartment in a converted, somewhat lopsided old building that was perfectly pleasant if not a little scant of personal belongings. It had low ceilings and a small sitting and kitchen area squished catty corner from a bed and one of those desks that you pull out from the wall tucked on the other side of a small alcove. One window streamed in striped light through venetian blinds across Sam’s stark white bedspread that looked as new and out of place as Sam did in somewhere like this that bordered on ramshackle. Cozy and sensible, if not a bit cramped and musty with the age of the building and the pre-furnishing.

Loosening his tie as he dropped to one end of the worn out corduroy loveseat, Josh deemed that it all looked very much like a perfectly suitable apartment of a practical graduate student on a budget who didn’t think they were going to be there for long. Someone who was trying not to form an emotional attachment to the place but still hadn’t been able to help the few revealing personal touches like a sleek velvety blanket draped over one armrest and on the wobbly coffee table, were those… coasters with National Park logos? A nerdy neat freak with nice taste he could no longer afford.

“So, Josh Lyman,” Sam said as he handed him a glass and joined him on the couch.

“So, Sam Seaborn,” Josh echoed.

Sam smiled and tucked his legs underneath himself, shifting to face Josh, “I know that you work on the Hill.”

“Yeah.”

“But in the months we’ve been conversing, I have yet to be able to piece together what it is you actually do,” Sam tilted his head inquisitively and took a sip of wine. Josh took him in as he drank, the soft lamplight making his tan skin look even more tan, the way his navy blue turtleneck sweater hugged his arms and broad shoulders, the way he still sat up with this perfectly poised posture even in his own home, blue eyes still sweet and sparkly behind his glasses. Josh was starting to get the sense that this brightness that resonated through Sam while taking his order and serving his coffee was inherent to who he was and not just put on for customers.

“I’m a junior legislative assistant for Congressman Nick Harrison,” Josh replied.

Sam nodded but asked, “So what does that entail?”

“Uh…” Josh set down his glass on a Sequoia coaster and stretched his legs out in front of him and his hands up over his head, “Basically just helping to research and coordinate policy positions. Lots of parleying over wording and statistics and who else is going to support what legislation.”

“I see,” Sam took a sip as Josh moved to prop an elbow on the back of the couch so he could cup his chin to meet Sam’s face as he asked, “So. Did you… always want to be a junior legislative assistant for a moderate Democrat from Connecticut?”

Giving a soft chuckle, Josh replied, “It’s a stepping stone to what I want to do, which is… yeah, I guess basically what I’m doing now but in the White House.”

“So you want to be somebody’s Chief of Staff?” Sam’s eyes lit up even brighter, and Josh nodded, struck a bit dumb by how pretty they were in this light. “Okay,” Sam sat up a little bit, “If you could be Chief of Staff to any President in history, who would you pick?”

“Carter,” Josh answered without missing a beat.

“Huh!” Sam looked a bit taken aback. “You had that locked and loaded.”

“He wasn’t perfect, but he’s the only President in modern history would have chosen the right thing over the politically expedient thing without hesitation,” Josh explained, “It’s rare that I’ve met someone in politics who strikes me being a good person who became a politician instead of a political person who does good things sometimes.”

“So you’re saying that you want to work for someone who sees politics as a means to the end of doing good rather than doing good as a means to political ends?” Sam asked. “Even if it means losing reelection?”

Josh squinted a bit to try and parse Sam’s hair splitting before saying, “Yes.”

“That’s very noble,” Sam said without an ounce of derision, “See, I’ve always had this feeling with you that there was a starry-eyed idealist lying not too deep beneath the surface.”

This made Josh flush, and he looked away with a scoff, “You’re onto me,” before he nudged Sam’s knee with his own and asked, “How about you? Law school and extensive political knowledge make me think that this whole charming, hot barista thing you’ve got going on is not your endgame.”

It was Sam’s turn to blush at Josh’s remark, but he hid it with another sip of wine and saying, “I guess I want to be an environmental lawyer,” he self-consciously ran an elegant finger tip around the rim of his glass and Josh swallowed hard, unable to pry his eyes away from Sam’s hands. Sam went on, “My favorite classes were always my science electives, but I uh, I lack the head for figures to have been competent in any STEM field.” He moved to set his glass down and shifted on the cushion to mirror Josh, his chin on the crook of his bent arm, “I also have always kind of seen myself running for office eventually after an illustrious career trying to save the planet. Or being I don’t know, the head of the EPA,” he continued, his tone self-deprecatingly lofty, “But that all seems very pie in the sky from where I am right now.”

“Don’t rule yourself out, Sam,” Josh said, that flash of tenderness back in his voice and still surprising him, “In my albeit short political career I’ve had plenty of bad bosses and the one thing they all had in common was that they never had a job where they had to clean a toilet.”

Sam laughed heartily at that and threw in a joking, “Well, perhaps my parents did a favor disinheriting me cause I never would have had to do that otherwise.” Half expecting Sam’s jocular tone to drop, Josh watched his face closely, but without so much as a flicker of underlying hurt at the joke, Sam was perched back up and chattering away again about Jimmy Carter’s environmental policies and how he helped shape the narrative around the interconnectedness of the environment and public health. Josh just sat back and listened a bit in awe. There was certainly sadness in Sam’s life, and even sadness in Sam, but he seemed… all in all… like a happy person. Like that his resting state tended to be one of contentment, even when things were stressful and hard. Growing up, Josh had thought of people like this as naïve or willfully ignorant or just lucky to have never had to experience loss or pain, that if you weren’t scared and angry you weren’t paying attention. But Sam paid attention. Sam was intelligent and in tune with the world and empathetic to the suffering that existed in it as well as having gone though some bullshit himself. Josh, despite Sam’s keen observation of his undeniably un-jaded outlook on what was possible, had long ago realized that his neutral state was such that, even if things were going okay, he could never quite shake himself out of fight or flight mode. Childhood trauma, his therapist had explained, had trained his body to be in a constant state of hyper-vigilance, unable to trust that a good thing was nothing more than the calm before the storm, a decoy that, if he wasn’t careful, would allow him to let his guard down just long enough for something else to go up in smoke. It’s not that he was incapable of joy or had, on paper, had a particularly hard life, it’s just that he never quite knew what to make of someone who could be described as joyful. He also knew that Sam had his own shit going on; he was neurotic and obsessive and navigating family dynamics Josh had never had to face. But he was still someone who came across as just being genuinely, simply, at the end of the day, an overall happy person. He wondered if that was something someone would ever say about him some day. He wondered if that was something that was infectious.

Maybe that’s what kept him coming back to drink a cup of coffee he didn’t order and couldn’t really afford every day.

They talked politics a bit longer before Sam wanted to turn on TMC, which Josh hadn’t even realized was still a thing, so they could catch the preshow commentary. As Sam poured more wine and bundled up in the soft blanket, Josh started losing the top buttons of his shirt complaining, “Aren’t you burning up?”

“I’m a beach bum by nature,” Sam explained, hunkering further into the blankets, “Which means I’m stuck with perpetual chills and a massive heating bill.”

“Didn’t you go to Princeton?” Josh recalled teasingly and Sam kicked him in the thigh, prompting a fit of giggles as the movie got started.

“Shh, shh, shh it’s on!” Sam scolded. They watched and laughed and drank and during the commercials, they analyzed the different layers of satire and its relevance today. And by the time the end credits rolled, they were a bit tipsy and Josh had stripped down to just his t-shirt and bare feet (which he’d tried to put on the coffee table, but earned a poorly hidden wince from Sam, so he’d draped a leg over the arm rest instead). He’d also managed to slip one of the not-so-sly moves where he stretched his arm and let it drop on the back of the couch behind Sam’s shoulders and Sam had scooted a few inches towards his side. So Sam’s face was a bit closer than he expected when Josh turned his head to say, “Crazy how one movie can both be so specifically topical for the year it was made and yet just painfully relevant for where we are now.”

“Mmm hmm,” Sam agreed, his hands fidgeting at his nearly empty wine glass, his eyes fixed on Josh’s mouth as he spoke, “That’s an um… excellent observation. Very well said. Couldn’t agree more.”

“Sam,” Josh said quietly, almost under his breath.

“Hmm?” Sam adjusted his glasses.

“Can I kiss you?” Josh practically whispered into the shrinking space between them, “Now that the movie’s over.”

“I’d like that very much,” Sam said matter-of-factly.

“Yeah?” Josh said, not breaking his gaze from Sam’s as he slowly took the wine from Sam’s hand and set it on its coaster.

“Yeah.”

Placing a hand on either side of Sam’s face, Josh paused to run his thumbs over his wine-flushed cheeks, and Sam swallowed hard as Josh murmured, “You sure?”

“Completely,” Sam breathed, “Utterly. Positively.”

Josh kissed him like he’d been aching to for months: deliberate, gentle, and slow, making sure to taste every corner of Sam’s mouth with his. And Sam kissed him back delicately at first, responsive and sweet, replying to each roll of Josh’s tongue with one of his own, melting under Josh’s touch. Then, with momentum Josh knew was coming, Sam exhaled sharply through his nose and moved to push Josh back against the couch, straddling his lap and cupping his face. Josh gave a low moan, hands flying to Sam’s back, and let himself be kissed.

And fuck Sam was a good kisser, all sharp control and crisp precision, tempered by something deeper and carnal, a blurry passion underneath crystal-clear diligence. Sam kissed like old Hollywood, and what didn’t go straight to Josh’s pants went right to his head like a rush, like a hit of a joint, and Josh didn’t know if he was being slowly killed or brought back to life. Sam ground his hips down so they could feel each other through layers of fabric, and Josh would have fucking screamed into his mouth if he’d been remotely in possession of his faculties, but what came out instead was a strangled groan that tangled with the wet sound of their lips dragging, stubble catching as Sam angled their mouths for more leverage. Josh’s hips gave an involuntary thrust up to meet Sam’s hardness again, and Sam had to break apart, throwing his head back to moan, leaving Josh gasping desperately like he’d just been unplugged from an oxygen tank. He grasped at Sam’s sweater moving his hands beneath the hem to crawl his fingers hungrily up Sam’s back. Sam rocked himself subconsciously against Josh, his eyes fluttering closed and his Adam’s apple bobbing as he swallowed thickly.

“Fuck, Sam,” Josh didn’t know how it was possible for them to both be this far gone and this clothed, “I mean _fuck.”_ He reached to tug at Sam’s sweater and top, and Sam stopped to help pull them over his head and fling them across the couch and rescue his glasses before turning back and smirking at the stunned look on Josh’s face as he took him in. “I mean _fuck!”_ Josh managed, hands greedily moving to palm the planes of Sam’s torso. The muscles of his stomach moved beneath Josh’s fingers as he laughed, trying to make himself look more bashful than he really was. Josh felt himself lick his lips as Sam watched his lustful reverence, neither hands nor eyes sure where to land. Sam kept giggling, and Josh said pitifully, “What’s so funny, Seaborn?”

“You look like a kid in a candy store,” Sam teased.

“A very, very, very gay kid in a very, very, very hot candy store,” Josh agreed. Sam laughed with his whole body at that, and Josh was still running his hands up and down Sam’s arms.

When Sam collected himself, he said in a low challenge, “Are you planning on doing anything about it?”

Josh practically growled and yanked his own t-shirt off by the collar and quickly buried his nose in the dip above Sam’s clavicle, Sam was still laughing, but it was broken off by hitched breathing when Josh sunk his teeth into Sam’s skin.

 _“Josh,”_ Sam said shakily, hands pawing at Josh’s back, hips grinding down harder and harder. Josh hummed and licked the bruise he left before diving back in to kiss Sam’s lips. Riding a wave of something burning hot and tangled in the pit of his stomach, he used the kiss to get up and over Sam, pressing him into the back of the couch. Sam’s eager moans into Josh’s mouth were broken by a small, little yelp as Josh shifted to kiss him harder, inadvertently crushing Sam’s glasses hard against the bridge of his nose. He pulled back to apologize, but Sam just ripped them off and reached back for Josh.

They were tearing each other apart now. It was becoming clumsy and urgent and toothy and fast, brows furrowed, hands frenzied to try and get enough of each other, moans turning bodily and involuntary, pretense and romance gone. When Josh gracelessly fumbled for the fly of Sam’s loose jeans, Sam’s head fell back on the sofa with a thud and a hoarse, “Thank fucking Christ.”

Josh didn’t have the headspace to laugh, but he grinned sideways and breathlessly as he swiftly pushed himself back and onto his knees on the floor, roughly taking Sam’s pants and briefs down with him. Staring down at Josh with blown eyes and his lips parted, Sam opened his legs and reached to anchor his hands on Josh’s shoulder. Josh felt his own lips fall open looking back up at him, punched in the stomach by how beautiful all of this was— how beautiful Sam was with his golden features looking like a Greek God, and how beautifully hedonistic and worshipful it felt to fall to his knees before him— and he felt like all at once they were making something new and novel here between them while somehow also participating in something that felt ancient and ritualistic and consecrated. Like the heavens had broken and the Sacred Band of Thebes was serenading them. And he had no way to prove it, but he had a feeling that none of them had ever looked as good as Sam did and then he had to shake himself back into reality because it was just a blowjob.

So he took Sam in his mouth and did what he’d always done; he gave head with the same messy intention with which he did everything. Including his job. And he was pretty good at his job.

Within a few minutes, Sam’s breathing was unsteady, and he could barely manage the string of swears, jerking his hips up abruptly. Josh hummed around him and gave and encouraging squeeze of Sam’s thighs before taking him deeper as Sam’s hand flew to his head, holding him still and rocking up into him. Watching with wide, wet eyes, he felt his whole stomach somersault over itself at the way Sam’s lips curled and eyes pressed shut and smooth chest shone with sweat. The way his perfect movie star mouth wrapped around an unvoiced “Josh.” Right when Josh was sure he had almost gotten him there, Sam was swatting him away, jolting upright breathlessly and shaking his head.

“Fuck, fuck, _fuck,_ hold on, hold on, hold on,” he slurred out, “I need… _phew,_ I need a second to… yeah, just… or I would’ve been out of commission and the night is young.”

Josh felt his face go pinched as he wiped his mouth and blinked with a perplexed, “Wh-what?”

“Do you…?” Sam’s breath caught as he attempted to steady it, “Do you want to come to bed?”

Josh’s voice sounded low and crazed and breathy when he replied, “Oh _God_ yes.”

Moving to Sam’s bed, they were still practically attached to each other, barely able to stop touching each other long enough for Sam to close the blinds and pull Josh out of the last of his clothes. Josh fell back onto Sam’s pillows and watched with giddy laughter as Sam climbed up him, kissing his legs, his hips, his stomach, his chest, his neck, as he went. His heart was doing its best to keep up, but it felt like it might flat-line at any second with each of Sam’s ministrations. Pausing, hovered over Josh’s lips, Sam whispered, “Josh?”

“What?” Josh asked, determining whatever he was going to say couldn’t possibly be worth dragging this out further when his arms looked like that framed on either side of his head.

“I don’t have any…”

“Okay,” Josh swallowed down the swoop of butterflies the mental image conjured.

“Do you?” Sam asked and Josh shook his head. “Okay.”

“It’s okay, Sam, there’s _plenty_ we can do without them.” Josh said, reached to plant a hand on the back of Sam’s neck.

Sam let Josh pull him down for a long kiss before breaking apart a centimeter or two to whisper “Next time?”

Stomach in a flutter of knots at the thought, Josh replied, “Any time,” tugging Sam back into the kiss. Sam’s arms gave out now and he collapsed onto Josh’s chest and they wrapped themselves around each other.

It was one of those nights that seemed to move around them rather than moving through it so that when Josh came, he came crashing down. The pull and drag of Sam’s body above him a perfect downbeat to his speeding heart rate and rapid breathing.

“Oh my god, Sam, oh my _god,”_ he gasped as the last of his climax shook through him.

Sam gingerly pulled his fingers out from inside Josh where, needing only a bit of instruction, they’d taken him apart like nobody ever had. As Sam moved his hand to join his other tangled in the curls at the nape of Josh’s neck, Josh shifted his own sticky hand to focus solely on Sam as his thrusts became increasingly erratic.

“That’s it, Sam,” he murmured as Sam pressed their sweaty foreheads together, “You look so fucking good.”

“So, so close...” Sam moaned.

Josh tightened his legs around Sam’s waist and stretched to suck another spot onto his neck, letting Sam thrust into his hand until he found the perfect angle. “Oh God, oh fuck ohfuckohfuck oh _Josh!”_

And he was gone. Josh just coaxed as much out of Sam as he could, watching his gorgeous lips spill exquisite sounds has his hips gave their last feeble jerks into Josh’s hand before he tumbled onto his side.

They panted and held intense eye contact for a few long seconds before Sam scrambled to grab Josh’s clean hand, and they squeezed each other hard. Once he caught his breath, Sam looked like he wanted to speak, so Josh tipped his head against the pillow, but all Sam could muster was a little mouthed “Oh, Josh” that fell somewhere between laughing and crying.

“Sam, I have to tell you something,” Josh whispered, fingers going to comb through Sam’s bangs.

“Hmm?” Sam’s voice was soft, and his eyes were huge and expectant.

“I’ve never ordered a caffè latte in my life.” Josh smirked.

“What?” Sam sputtered, “That’s your drink!”

“No, no, it’s really not, Sam,” Josh laughed, “I take my coffee black. You must’ve gotten me mixed up with someone else.”

“W-why did you let me keep serving you the wrong drink every day for... five months?” Sam sat up, the covers pooled around his hips, blinking hurriedly, kind of flummoxed, a little embarrassed, and a bit amused.

“Because!” Josh looked up at him grinning at how he spun out over nothing, “You got a kick out if remembering my order.”

“But I wasn’t remembering your order!”

“Yeah, but I had a crush on you, so...” Josh shrugged and poked Sam’s knee.

Sam fell back over-dramatically onto the pillows with a long suffering sigh, “I don’t know how I’ll ever trust again.”

Josh snorted and said, “I didn’t want this to go any further before the truth was out there.”

“Maybe one day I’ll forgive you,” Sam’s melodrama was cut off by a twinkle in his eye as he turned back in towards Josh, letting Josh wrap him into a slow kiss. “Was this worth five months of coffee you didn’t order?” Sam asked, still practically pressed against Josh’s lips.

“Oh, I’d drink five years of coffee I didn’t order for this.”

Sam chuckled, a light blush still on his face as he moved to place a quick kiss on Josh’s head, “Think I’m gonna shower off. Can I get you something?”

“Uh…” Josh looked at his stomach where the remains of their climaxes were still drying. Sam hopped up and trod over to the adjoining bathroom to soak and wring a white washcloth of all its extra drip. Josh watched his lean silhouette in the soft light of the bathroom door, all taut lines and long angled limbs but for where the smooth skin curved around a plump ass and the gorgeous muscles of his calves and biceps. Josh wondered how Sam had seemed as mesmerized at Josh’s body as Josh was at Sam’s. But the way Sam had whispered, “My God, you’re so beautiful, you’re so beautiful,” over and over again as he’d worked him open and pressed kisses on his thighs still rung in his ears like a vibrating string on a harp after it had been plucked. And fuck if it hadn’t swelled his chest a little to have someone so beautiful see beauty in things about himself he never would have been able to look at long enough to find what Sam saw. Looking down at himself now, he wasn’t sure if he agreed that… what had Sam said? That he looked like an Italian Renaissance painting. But there was such an unvarnished truth in Sam’s voice when he’d muttered it helplessly from between Josh’s legs that he was tempted to believe him.

Sam looked shiny and mussed when he came back with the rag, stopping at a little chest of drawers to grab a pair of tidily folded sweatpants. He underhand-tossed them both to Josh and said, “You’re obviously absolutely welcome to stay, but I am working the first shift tomorrow morning, so if you want to crash here a little longer, I can show you how to lock up and everything. The bolt is a little fussy.”

“I actually got called in to the office tomorrow to sit in on some stupid live stream interview thing and about military spending. My boss wants me there because he doesn’t know how to use the damn thing,” Josh replied, rubbing himself clean, “So I’ll probably head out when you do.”

Sam offered to drive him, but Josh declined, explaining that he wanted to get a change of clothes and everything. Sam offered to drive him by his place first, but Josh told him it was out of the way, that Sam had already done enough for him tonight, and that it was just as easy to take the Metro. Sam asked if he was sure, and Josh said he was sure and that he could go shower, and Sam came over to kiss him, and Josh held his face in his hands and kissed him back, and it was long and firm and perfect, and if Sam hadn’t pulled away exactly when he did, Josh would have yanked him back down into the bed on top of him.

The thudding of the water and Sam’s happy little hums were so soothing and Sam’s bed was so surprisingly comfortable there in the cozy corner by the wall that Josh felt himself drift in and out of sleep almost as soon as he’d tucked against the pillows. He was only vaguely aware of Sam coming in and getting dried off and dressed in his pajamas and crossing back and forth to collect and wash their cups, to find his glasses, to gather and fold their clothes, and set them on top of his chest of drawers. He opened his mouth more than once to try and make a gay sex joke about Sam being anal or something and all the pieces were there but he was too sleepy to put them together before Sam was slipping in bed beside him, smelling like a woody soap and mint. Sam ran his knuckles along Josh’s cheek, and Josh smiled into the touch and instinctively folded and arm around Sam’s middle.

“You’re gorgeous,” Sam whispered, and Josh opened his eyes to find Sam’s wide open, far from sleep.

“Mmm…” Josh hummed sleepily, “You’re gonna have to give me a minute if you’re trying to start round two, Seaborn.” Sam shook his head. Kissing Sam’s hand, Josh added “I guess I should mention that _I’ve_ never done _this_ part before.”

“What part?” Sam asked.

“The holding each other into the night and talking about our deepest darkest secrets part,” Josh said. “I’ve usually made my exit by now.”

“Josh Lyman,” Sam asked in fake outrage, “Are you a fuckboy?”

“Well, my therapist says that I deflect my fear of emotional intimacy with humor and work,” Josh let his eyes fall closed, “If that’s what you mean.”

Sam chuckled, “I guess that’s what I mean,” he snuggled in closer before whispering, “It’s okay, the last time I had a therapist, I wouldn’t even open up to her enough to get that far.” Josh snorted, and Sam went on, “I wanted be like, good at therapy, so just told her whatever I needed to say for her to tell me it sounded like I was doing better.”

“Hmm…” Josh smiled, kissing Sam’s hair, “We should maybe try opening up sometime.”

“Perhaps,” Sam said. “But not tonight. Work in the morning.”

They both laughed into a drowsy quiet, their breathing lapsing in an out of synch, the gentle stir of Sam’s mini fridge the only other sound in the room. Josh felt Sam curl closer against his side, saying, “Besides, Josh, I’ve now revealed to you that I went to therapy, so I’m not really sure what else you want from me.”

Josh just tucked his chin on Sam’s hair and whispered, “G’night, Sam.”

The livestream the next morning went about as poorly as one could expect. The Congressman was confused by the technology and came across as belligerent. All Josh could do was silently suffer into his palms off screen and hold up sticky notes that said “Homeless vets stats!” and “She’s older than you, she’s not a ‘girl!’” But he was also pretty distracted by fresh memories of how good Sam had looked in the morning. How they’d made out until the last possible second leaving Josh with nothing to do but scramble into his clothes as Sam had smiled from the bed looking all dazed and pink, asking if Josh wanted to borrow an umbrella because it looked like rain. The way Sam had stopped to pull him in for a quick but no less electrifying kiss on his way out the door. And every time he closed his sleep-deprived eyes and imagined Sam’s hands on his body, he’d been jerked back to attention by the Congressman mispronouncing the name of _another_ person of color alongside whom he’d been working for _years_. Halfway though, he’d gotten a text from Amy in the middle of it asking if Harrison knew that letting women go fight racist wars wasn’t exactly her idea of liberation. Followed thirty seconds later asking how’d it go with the hottie with a body from the coffee shop. Josh had turned off his phone.

So when he was finally hurrying away from the Hill just before lunch, he was beyond relieved even though it was pouring down rain. Just like Sam had warned him. He found himself sloshing his way to the coffee shop even though he could feasibly just go home before he’d even really decided that’s where he was headed. And he was glad he had, because even though the place was a little busier than usual, he and Sam might as well have been the only two people in the tri-state area when their eyes met. The things Sam’s smile did to his heart… Dripping wet and no doubt looking a bit disgruntled, he found a seat at the counter in the back where Sam had been sitting the night before. He pulled out his phone and scrolled through his emails without actually reading them. He didn’t look up until Sam set a paper cup in front of him and said softly, “Your caffè latte.” He opened his mouth, but Sam just winked at him and went back to his work. When he lifted the lid to his lips, the hot, strong drink that hit his tongue was in fact the black coffee he’d actually ordered all those months ago, sweetened just the right amount. When he set the cup down, he noticed that Sam had scribbled with Sharpie underneath the boxes on the side of the cup indicating whether the drink was decaf, what kind of milk it contained and so on. Sam had added a checklist of five extra boxes, ticked them each off and written by each box,  
“Casablanca.  
Tonight.  
8:00 PM.  
My place.  
Trojans.”

He glanced up to catch Sam’s eye, and they grinned at each other like idiots from across the crowd. The moment Sam had to break their eye contact to take someone’s order, Josh pulled open the text from Amy and simply replied, “Gardner, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.”

**Author's Note:**

> Characters obviously don't belong to me.  
> Shoutout to Nirali for inspiring this whole ass journey here! It's been a lot of fun to write!  
> -Your friendly neighborhood Sam Seaborn-Amy Gardner lovechild


End file.
